


Packed Lunches, Sticky Fingers and Accidental Levitation

by LadyLondonderry



Series: 28 Brixby Place [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Babysitting, Foster Care, Harry adopted a lot of children, M/M, Magic-Users, Pixies, Single Parent Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 04:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11479071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLondonderry/pseuds/LadyLondonderry
Summary: Harry Styles is a skilled work-from-home potionist five years out of university with a steady job, a house, and... eight kids.He also might be heading towards a breakdown if he doesn't get a bit of help.Enter a meddling pixie and an old university friend he might or might not have had a lot of feelings for.





	Packed Lunches, Sticky Fingers and Accidental Levitation

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally an idea spawned from something [Juliusschmit](http://archiveofourown.org/users/juliusschmit) said about a month ago now, and it's just sort of grown over time as I kept writing it.
> 
> Also, this title is a horrible misnomer. There is absolutely zero levitation in this fic. Apologies all around.
> 
> My Prompt for this was "The happy anticipation of cleaning house" but alas that also went a little awry... But it's close! You'll see. A house does get clean.
> 
> This fic was written as part of an ongoing challenge. We each select random numbers and are given a specific emotion from the book 1000 Feelings For Which There Are No Names. To read the other fics written in this challenge, [click here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/ShortFic_Challenge_For_Which_There_Is_No_Name/works), or you can find the masterpost on tumblr [here](http://lululawrence.tumblr.com/post/159679804243/1000-feelings-for-which-there-are-no-names-prompt).

Little Amelia Ettinger once told Harry that life at 28 Brixby Place is like having summer holidays year round.

Harry’s heart melted a little at that, as it often does when children say things that are brutally honest because it doesn’t occur to them not to be. At the time, he kissed her on the forehead and handed her a bottle of juice and shuffled her along out to the back garden, knowing it wasn’t the time or place to get emotional, but what she said stuck with him long past when she surely forgot about it.

On a good morning, the neighbours of 28 Brixby Place live a nice, quiet life in a nice, quiet neighbourhood. They get up, eat breakfast, and head off to work in their compact cars. Sometimes they wave to their neighbours who are also heading off to work in their compact cars of similar shapes and colours. They remark on the weather, and perhaps mention the price of eggs going up.

On bad mornings, the neighbours of 28 Brixby Place walk up to the battered old door with the gold numbers 2 and 8 hanging only a bit lopsidedly above it, they ring the doorbell no less than three times, and shove a cat, pigeon, or toad at whomever opens the door. They mutter things under their breath about odd neighbours as they walk back to their cars, and they whisper behind hedges about  _ Harry’s brood _ being at it again.

And when they drive off, sets of eyes tend to watch them through the windows. Sticky jammy fingers point in their direction and little voices say, “Good job, Clarence, we’re definitely going to win the game today!”

And Harry sighs and rolls his eyes as he slathers butter and jam on yet another slice of toast.

— 

Amelia is ready on time, but has to run back inside at the last minute for her packed lunch. Troy loses his yo-yo, and makes sparks fly under the couch in an attempt to find it. Kayleigh informs Harry that she won’t have butter with her jam any more because one of the girls in her astronomy class told her it was gross. Gus disappears into the back garden at seven in the morning and Harry has to put a homing spell on him to drag him out from between the bushes in time for class. Cole dumps his potions homework down the drain and has a meltdown because he says it’s all ruined and he’ll never graduate and become a real merlin now. Mesha eats Cole’s toast. Andrew is a perfectly well behaved gentleman which Harry is sure means that he’s got himself into some kind of trouble in Herb and Petal Harvesting again and Harry will soon be getting a note from his professor.

Four children off to primary, another four to secondary, and eight hours of getting work done before they’re all back again.

Harry’s got nine customers to visit today, and six potions that will be ready precisely between 12:07 and 12:34. The house is a mess and there’s simply  _ no time _ for it to be anything but. He looks back in despair as he shucks his bag over his shoulder and magicks the locks. 

— 

He takes the broom because it’s overcast enough that no one is going to see him. At least, they won’t once he dabs a bit of fresh aloe behind his ears and chants a safety spell. It’s elementary stuff, the first thing his mum taught him on the walk to primary, but some witches and wizards these days just can’t appreciate the basics.

His first stop is to Mr. Li’s house - out in the country and a horrible trip to make in the winter. He thanks his stars that the spring drizzle is all that hits him on the way. 

After delivering Mr. Li’s weekly assortment of herbs, Harry heads for Ms. Botti’s, and then Mrs. Seabrig, who thankfully invites him in for a spot of tea.

He can’t stay more than ten minutes, of course, because he has to get back home before the youngest get home and start looking for snacks. So he’s off again to the Kroegers’ flat, and then little old Ms. Porter, and down through the busiest part of town to Mr. Snowmason.

The day is full but he has plenty of time to think as he flies above town. And think he does. Mostly about how much he would just like to sit down and  _ clean _ and for once let the house  _ stay _ clean. He wants to go to bed without worrying about attracting mice and he’d like to wake up in the early hours of the morning without having to chant a glow-spell and check for spare building blocks where his feet are going to go.

By the time he’s visited Andrea Jones, Mr. and Mrs. Navaratnam and Sir Ungaro, he’s running short of time and definitely breaks a couple speed laws on his way home (but if the local mage turns a blind eye when he sees Harry flying down 7th, no one has to know). He sees Troy, Elizabeth, Mesha and Gus coming up the front walk just as he lands on the roof and slips down the chimney, and is in time to greet them at the front door.

One hour until the secondary children get home, so Harry had better get to work on that shepherd’s pie for dinner.

— 

Eight o’ clock means having to herd the littlest ones inside for their baths and bedtime stories, and Harry has only just finished helping Amelia and Cole with their Magical Regulations essays. The sink is full of dishes that he knows  _ has _ to get done tonight because he can _ not _ just go down to Poundland and buy more plates when he runs out.

At least, they’re going to start looking at him funny if he goes back and does it a third time.

He calls in Gus and Troy, giving Mesha and Elizabeth ten more minutes of free time since  _ they, _ at least, ate all their green beans. Gus comes with a grumble and seeing the purple stains on his hands Harry knows he’s going to have another talk with him about letting the blueberries grow in peace and not disturbing the pygmy dragon nests that are laid beneath the bushes (next time it’ll be scorched fingers for sure).

Next comes Troy, and he’s holding up a mason jar that Harry distinctly remembers filling with carrots and peanut butter that morning. Now, though, it seems to be filled with a miniature thunderstorm, a grey smokey mass swirling through every corner and emitting a flickering light.

“Where’d you get that, Troy?” Harry asks, taking the jar from him in careful hands. He knows what’s inside and figures he doesn’t want Troy accidentally dropping it and making their visitor angry.

“Kayleigh caught it in the back garden! She called it a  _ ligh-tin-ing _ bug!”

Sometimes Harry really wonders about the nonsense Kayleigh’s parents filled her ears with rather than just admitting to each other that she could do magic.

“This is definitely not a lightning bug,” Harry says. “This is a garden pixie, and I want you to go tell Kayleigh that we don’t put pixies in jars, okay?”

“Yeah… Alright,” Troy says, looking a little sad that he’s not getting his treasure back. Harry waits until the door is shut behind troy before he turns his attention back to the jar in his hand.

The pixie is banging around like crazy in there - not that Harry can see them through the smoke cloud they’ve made. He can feel as they bounces off the side and while he know a pixie could never break the glass on their own, he’s a little afraid of riling them up any more.

Amelia and Cole are still at the kitchen table finishing their essays and maths, Troy and Gus are upstairs and Harry can hear the water running in the bath so they’re not in trouble  _ yet, _ Mesha, Elizabeth and Cole are in the back garden terrorizing his wisteria, and Andrew is… well, Harry’s not sure where Andrew is but he’s the least likely to land himself in trouble so Harry lets him be.

He takes the jar up to his room, careful not to jostle them, and shuts the door carefully behind him. 

Okay. Harry can do this. He handles eight slightly manic children still coming into their powers on a daily basis, one angry garden pixie is a piece of cake.

Hopefully.

He grabs a bit of sugar from the top of his dresser and sprinkles it on top of the jar, and then gets some mint leaves and forms a loose circle around it, big enough for the pixie to move around comfortably. He goes over and obtains his birch wand from the shower (because he doesn’t use the birch one very much, but it’s better for physical spells than his willow wand is, and the shower needed a bit of elbow grease with the state it was in). Standing a safe distance away, he points the birch wand at the jar and mutters a quick spell of release.

That being said, it’s been awhile since he’s tried this spell, and maybe he overextends a little. The jar absolutely shatters, and Harry jumps back with a very loud  _ “fuck me!” _ that he  _ prays _ the children didn’t hear.

Still, thanks to the mint he doesn’t have to worry about coming into contact with any of the glass, as it shreds to glitter when it comes into contact with the barrier.

The smoke formerly contained in the jar billows out and fills the space between the mint leaves before it dissipates, leaving only a haze in the air, and a sparking-mad pixie.

They’re only about five inches tall, Harry sees once he finally spots them. Their skin is tanned and blends in very well where they’ve covered themself with bits of bark in the important places. Still, they’re mostly nude and clearly not at all concerned about it.

“Hello,” Harry says.

The pixie glares at him.

“I’m sorry my child seems to have caught you,” he tells them. “She’s a bit adventurous and sometimes doesn’t stop to think about her impact on others.”

The pixie looks nonplussed. Their wings - shimmery green like iridescent maple leaves - begin to beat like a hummingbird’s, so fast they become a blur.

“She called me a  _ lightning bug,” _ they hiss.

“Technically she called you a ligh-tin-ing bug,” Harry clarifies. Then, seeing their expression, he hurries to add, “and I do deeply apologise for that. I hope you don’t hold it against her.”

They roll their eyes. “Of course not,” they snap. “She’s a  _ young. _ However,  _ you _ are not.”

Harry gulps. He feels like he’s about to get a telling-off like his mum used to give him when he would splash the rug with bathwater.

“I’ve made a home in the wisteria since it was planted,” the pixie tells him. That’d be since before Harry moved in, then. “I’ve watched you since you moved in and I’ve watched your… collection of young multiply.”

Harry tries not to be offended at the phrasing. Pixies are not particularly familiar with human tendencies when it doesn’t concern them.

“And I’ve watched  _ you _ become more and more haggard. If it continues on like this, one of them is going to cause disaster and you won’t be around to stop it.”

“Well I think  _ that’s _ a bit of an overstatement-” Harry butts in.

“The young with the curly hair and buck teeth has been trying to set a trap for the pygmy dragons,” the pixie informs him.

_ Shit. _ Harry is going to have to have a talk with Gus.

“And the young with the large eyes has set three fires when she sneezed.”

Harry takes a deep breath. He’s going to have to call the school tomorrow about getting Mesha into a few counseling sessions, if she’s still trying to hold her powers in like that.

The pixie looks up at him with serious eyes. “Something has to be done.”

“I-”

“I will bring a helper,” they say.

“A  _ helper?” _ Harry repeats, incredulously.

“It is the only thing for it. What do your kind call them? A young-watcher. A young-sat. Seat.”

“A… baby-sitter?” Harry ventures.

They snap their fingers. “Yes. A…  _ babby _ -sitter.” 

“You can’t just… No offense, but I can’t trust my children with a pixie.”

The pixie rolls their eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. This… sitter. They will be human. Like you. I have thought about this, and chosen one that owes me a favour. You are of acquaintance. It will be fine.”

Harry frowns. He doesn’t know who he would be  _ of acquaintance  _ with who would be able to drop everything and babysit. 

Still, to refuse a pixie’s gift would be extremely rude, and while they can’t cause as much havoc as a fairy can, he’s not into the idea of a pixie exacting vengeance while he’s trying to get work done.

“Thank you,” he says carefully. They nod in response. “When can I expect… the helper?”

“Tomorrow,” the pixie says dismissively. “Now, remove these mint leaves or I will turn your garden to rot.”

“Of course,” Harry says, hastening to make a path out of them. “May I asks, um, what you are called?”

Some pixies prefer to not have names at all, it’s a tricky situation. This one looks him up and down, as cool and collected as ever.

“Zayn,” they say, before promptly leaving through the hole in the mint leaves that Harry has made and popping out of existence.

The pop is loud and Harry puts a hand to his rabbiting heart. He needs to slow down on the tea, if he’s still this wired at eight thirty at night.

He picks up the birch wand in order to clean up the mess from the mint and the sugar. As the spell tumbles past his lips, Andrew crawls out from under the bed.

“Uncle Harry, what does  _ fuck _ mean?”

— 

It’s not that Harry  _ forgets _ about the pixie Zayn’s promise of delivering a helper. It’s just that he had to get the children up for school and he had to start the oven going in preparation for dinner that evening and he had it written on his broom notes to get an appointment with the school counselor for Mesha and Andrew had that project on Magic Around the World due and Harry had to spend some time making okonomiyaki for him to share with the class since he was presenting on magic in Japan. He also had to remember to clip Aeronaut’s claws because Kayleigh was bringing him in for bring-your-pet-to-class day, and that reminds him - Elizabeth’s toad Shelly needs a trip to the healers because she’s started to ribbit out some odd French words which means someone  _ probably _ was practicing magic on her but language is  _ not  _ Harry’s specialty…

And he forgot, okay? He totally forgot.

There’s a steady mist this morning, just bordering on a drizzle that means he’s only just sent off the second set of children because they’re always a little sluggish when it rains, and he’s only just sat down for his ten minutes of  _ peace _ with a cuppa and dog-eared copy of  _ Charles Dickens _ when a knock sounds at his door.

At first he assumes it’s a neighbor, come to deliver back home one of the children’s pets gone and escaped again. It happens fairly often, because magical pets are a bit much for simple fences to contain. He’s half tempted to pretend that he’s not home but when the knock comes again he takes a deep breath and steels himself for more weird looks from non-magical neighbors who just don’t quite get it.

When he opens the door, however, he finds no crabby neighbors waiting on the other side. No, instead he finds - 

“Louis?”

Louis seems nearly as surprised to see Harry as Harry is to see Louis. It's been… how long  _ has _ it been? Four, five years? He looks just as incredible as he did when they were at university together; eyelashes that models would kill for, cheekbones that accentuate his stubble in the best of ways, and those lips…

Of course, right now he also looks extremely wet - hair plastered to his forehead and a shirt plastered to his front so drenched that Harry can see the tattoos underneath.

Well  _ those _ are new.

“Harry?” Louis asks, looking just as puzzled as Harry is feeling himself, his eyes a little wide and his eyebrows drawn together.

“Um, yes.” Harry frowns. “I mean. Come in? You're soaked!”

He stands aside to let Louis in. Louis still has a sort of dazed confused look on his face, but he does come in out of the drizzle. 

“So…” Harry feels like this is a weird stress dream now. “What are you doing here? I mean, not to be rude. Are you here for a potion? Because I make home deliveries, and if I’d known I could have definitely worked you in…”

Louis is just sort of standing there in his entryway with a frown. Harry stops himself rambling. 

“I… Maybe I have the wrong house,” Louis says, mostly to himself. He pulls a small, bent journal out of his pocket as Harry just sort of helplessly stares at him. Louis is  _ here _ but he’s not supposed to be here? What is going on?

Louis swipes through several pages, then looks up to Harry. “28 Brixby?” He asks.

“That’s where we are,” Harry confirms.

“You’re in need of a nanny?” Louis asks, bewildered. “Harry Styles, do you have  _ kids?” _

Harry nearly bursts out laughing at the look on Louis’s face. “Um, yes,” he says, trying to keep his expression under control. “I mean, they’re not mine. I didn’t, like, steal them though! I mean. I foster? There’s eight of them right now.”

_ “Eight,” _ Louis repeats in awe. “You graduated top in your area of study, everyone said you’d go on to change the Potions field, and you’ve ended up in a nice little semi detached in a non-magic neighbourhood fostering  _ eight kids?” _

Harry’s cheeks burn. “I-I’m still a Potionist,” he stutters. It occurs to him that he’d lost track of Louis, the last time he had heard about him he was traveling through Malaysia, but it also occurs to him that Louis apparently never felt the need to look in on him, and he momentarily feels small. “I just wanted to make sure I was doing something important,” he says quietly. “There’s not infertility issues in magic families the way there can be in non-magic ones, and so adoption doesn’t happen as much. It’s harder for them.”

“Whoa, no I’m sorry,” Louis cuts in. “That- it came out all wrong, really. I just didn’t expect- you caught me off guard, that’s all. I think it’s absolutely amazing, that you decided to take on so much to help those kids.”

Harry looks up and sees those brilliant blue eyes, now with maybe a few more wrinkles at the corner than when the two of them shared a dorm, and he feels weird inside for a whole different reason.

Then the thought finally hits him.

“Wait - you’re from Zayn, aren’t you?”

Louis laughs, loud and bright. “Yeah! I owed him a favour for helping my family out a few months back, but it sounded crazy when he told me this is what he wanted me to do.” He shrugs helplessly. “But you can’t say no to Zayn, can you? And I was out of work, so it seemed like a good opportunity. He didn’t mention anything besides baby-sitting and an address, though! Brief and unhelpful as always.”

“Shh,” Harry hisses, eyes wide. “He’ll  _ hear _ you! I don’t want his little pixie wrath on my hands!”

Both of them pause and look around as if Zayn will appear at any moment. He might, Harry thinks. You can never trust a pixie.

It’s in that moment that Harry realises there’s a smell wafting through the house.  _ “Shit,” _ he groans. “The Compagibus potion! I got distracted!” he runs through the hallways and leaps up the stairs. “Leave your bag anywhere!” he calls down to Louis. “I’ve got to get this before the skin forms on top!”

Two floors up in his study, the cauldron in question is immediately identified by the bubbles forming along the top of the potion; a gooey lavender colored mixture that’s letting off the smell of fish and cut grass and (Harry knows from experience) tastes like boiled shrimp. The skin is already forming around the edges and Harry curses the fact that he didn’t set a timer.

He’s hard at work on siphoning the correct amount into vials and cooling the cauldron down to a simmer when footsteps echoing through the hallway alert him to Louis’s company.

“Sorry, sorry,” Harry rambles, not looking up for fear of spilling the near-boiling substance all over his fingers. “It’s only got a reaping time of about fifteen minutes and I missed about ten of them. Not your fault, of course! I should have planned better. These have to go out today but Cole spilled my jar of dried fish eyes earlier this week so I had to get some new ones before I could make this, so it’s all run rather behind.” He snaps his fingers and a clock face shimmers into view above the Compagibus potion.  _ “And _ I’m late to get to the clinic to deliver these, which means I’ll probably make it back here after the littlest ones get home. Um.” He turns back to where Louis is standing in the doorway, looking like a kid in a candy shop at Harry’s walls of ingredients and half-finished concoctions. His eyes snap to Harry’s when Harry pauses.

“I  _ am _ the hired help,” Louis says with a reassuring smile. “Assuming you want me here? I’d be happy to be here when they get home. Do they get snacks? Do you limit wand time? My sisters only get theirs for an hour before and an hour after dinner.”

“Oh I really  _ should _ do that,” Harry muses to himself, taking down his deliveries bag and opening the cushioned compartments for his potions to fit snugly into. “Mesha is going absolutely wild with hers lately, can’t get her to do anything else. Might help Troy to do something other than magick his yo-yos as well. Um, oh yes! Snacks. Healthy things, there’s plenty that can be picked in the back garden if there’s nothing good looking in the refrigerator. I’ll be back by the time the older ones get home, so you would only need to worry about Troy, Elizabeth, Mesha and Gus. Oh lord, Gus is a handful. I’m not sure I should be doing this - or letting  _ you _ do this, maybe I should just cancel my last delivery of the day - I mean, I know Zayn called you in so you’re probably expecting to get paid, but I can still pay you for today-”

Louis bats his hand in a shushing motion. “You’re not paying for anything,” he says. “Zayn paid me in advance. You don’t even want to know how much. He really thinks you need help.” Louis gives him a sort of lopsided smile. “But honestly, Harry. You remember my siblings, don’t you? I grew up with four sisters. There’s six of them now, by the way! I think mum was still pregnant when we graduated. Anyway, trust me. I can handle whatever your children can throw at me. Just leave your connection in case of emergency. You do have a connection signal, don’t you? I know not all wizards do, me mum still uses a non-wizard phone line, but they’re dead useful.”

Harry grabs a piece of paper from his desk, the corner of it having been burned off at some point. “Yeah, course,” He says, scribbling his connection signal down. It was an expensive purchase about a year after graduation, but it’s worth it to know that his kids have a way of contacting him any time they need to - just stick a wand toward any reflective surface (he’s got a mirror in the kitchen set up, as most do) and say the required connection and voila - the closest reflective surface to the person you’re trying to connect becomes your instant facetime portal. Who needs iPhones?

He hands it to Louis before throwing the last of what he needs in his bag and then taking a deep breath. “Listen, we’ll talk about this later,” he says (a promise to himself as much as Louis). “I want to hear what’s happened and it’d be nice to have someone around who’s not struggling with their Astronomy tables. I’m just late as hell right now and if I think about this too much I’m going to start asking you all sorts of questions.”

Louis nods and stands aside to make room for Harry to leave the study, but as some sort of automatic reaction (some sort of habit bubbling up to the surface from four years of rooming with him), Harry pulls Louis into a quick hug before he goes.

He feels Louis’s arms come up loosely around himself for only a moment before Harry is pulling away, alarms going off in his head that he’s managed to make this messy weird situation messier and weirder.

He takes the stairs at a run and tries not to think about it.

— 

Drizzling means flying can get a bit hazardous, and Harry knows he’s not in the right headspace to be trusted on a broom in the rain.

Still, it always feels weird taking the train with a bag full of potions and charms.

He’s got his pocket broom in his bag for when he gets to town, the shrinking charm he put on it held in place by a circle of seaweed, so that hopefully he can ride it home assuming the rain lets up. He’s sitting with his bag on his lap lest someone accidentally kick it, and he’s somehow ended up on the side of the train car with all of the seats facing backwards. Normally he works hard to get the perfect seat because he loves the views of the farmland and bits of ocean he gets to see as they zoom by, but today he still feels to frazzled.

Normally this would be the time to get out his diary and make sure all his appointments are in order, check that he brought the right potions, and then spend some time reviewing his schedule for the rest of the week to make sure everything is fitting in well, but today he just can’t handle it.

Was this morning even real?

He very clearly remembers the normal morning rush of getting everyone herded through breakfast and out the doors, and then sitting down with his book… But did Louis Tomlinson actually show up at his door? Has the last hour been a dream? He’s had vivid dreams before, and he’s definitely had dreams about Louis before… But this feels like reality, and it’s still happening. 

God,  _ Louis. _ Louis looks good. He looks amazing. Harry cringes at the memory that he actually  _ hugged _ Louis - should he cringe at that? They used to hug all the time. They used to  _ cuddle _ when one or the other got homesick. But it’s been years.

What has Louis been doing for the last four years?

— 

It had been three years of being roommates. Roommates that started out as acquaintances, and gradually morphed into friends, and the day Harry realised exactly how head-over-heels he really was - well. That was the same day Louis had announced he had been accepted for a study abroad program that would span his last semester of university.

Louis was moving on to do great things - of that Harry was certain. Harry’s field of study was something that could be practiced anywhere; all he needed were a handful of the right ingredients and a nice cauldron (or even a mixing bowl if the moment called for it). But Louis - Louis’s dream was to be a Cultuprea, an interpreter for magical communities around the world who can step between them and help them understand each other’s different ways of using and manipulating magic. It’s an important job that most magic users spend years working just to get an internship for, and the fact that Louis has managed to snag one while he’s still in school just shows how truly amicable he is. If anyone could go out there and break down cultural barriers and foster peace, Louis could. Harry’s confident of that.

It had seemed better at the time to spend his last few months rooming with Louis just being the good (maybe even best) friend that Louis had come to expect him to be, rather than to rock the boat and confess possibly-problematic feelings.

The months after Louis left, Harry had spent a lot of time wondering if he made the right decision. The fact of the matter was, Harry had no idea if Louis would have reacted positively in the first place - he had never given Harry and big hints that he might want to be anything more than friends while they were in school together, after all.

But, at the same time… Harry’s heart hurt. That last semester, Harry would wake up in the mornings and look over only to find the bed that Louis once occupied filled with a new guy called Liam (a stickler for the rules and no fun at parties). His days just weren’t as bright, and Harry wasn’t as ready to get up and go live his life.

He’d stopped hearing from Louis after the first few countries, the carrier birds (owls, hawks, pigeons and more colorful things depending on where he was) petering off. Harry likes to think that he doesn’t know exactly where every one of those letters he received are stored.

(He does, though - they’re in the back pages of his recipe book, between the banoffee pie and the triple layer brownies).

So it’s been years and Harry has distracted himself with other things, building a life and convincing himself that he’s over that crush from years ago. That maybe thinking about Louis from time to time late at night is only because it’s been awhile since he’s gotten a chance to have drinks with friends his own age. He’s written off those dreams that Louis appears in unbidden as his mind cycling through fond school memories. 

But now… it’s all become a little harder to dismiss.

And Harry’s just not sure he has the  _ time _ to deal with it all.

— 

Miss Johnson is the third person on Harry’s list, and when she opens the door and lets him in, he can instantly smell something warm and blueberry wafting through the house.

“You look like you could use a cuppa,” she tells him, and Harry is at least grateful for that, after thinking about his coffee sitting unfinished on the counter at home.

_ How is Louis faring at home? Are the youngest ones home yet? Has he already gotten overwhelmed or weirded out and left? _

She shows him to the kitchen and he takes a grateful seat at the table. He’s wet and a little miserable from having to walk through the pouring rain, and even his dry-spell isn’t working well enough to keep him from getting cold and clammy.

“I’ve got muffins,” Miss Johnson tells him, taking a plate out of the cupboard. “And I’ve put the kettle on. Do you need a towel? The oven’s still warm, you could sit in front of it to dry, I used to do that when I was little.”

“No, that’s okay,” Harry says. He’s half-heartedly rifling through his bag for her delivery. She’s got chronic numbness, and is a self-diagnosed hypochondriac, so he also often brings her something for her nerves if he’s got the time. “I’ve got both of your potions here  _ somewhere, _ it’s just that my morning was a bit of a mess and everything may have gotten a bit jumbled.”

“Oh don’t worry about it,” she tells him dismissively, bringing a plate stacked with muffins over. “You look like you need to take your time anyway. The muffins have a bit of an awakening spell laced through them though, I was trying out something new for the shop. If you don’t want that extra kick I would stick to just the tea.”

Harry takes a muffin gratefully. “Could probably use the pick-me-up,” he admits. “Today’s a long one and started off in a really weird place.”

With a mouth full of muffin (it’s delicious as always), he finally manages to locate both both vials, wedged together in the lower layer of his bag and right where they should have been.

_ Why  _ is _ Louis here now, though? Did something happen abroad? Does his family know? _

“I’ve got your Sinesensu and your Nervitem here,” he says between bites. “I’ll just take a minute to activate them and we can talk about change in dosage.”

The kettle noisily announces that it’s been brought to a boil and Miss Jacy gets up to pour a mug for each of them. “You’re in quite the hurry,” she says. “Right down to business! Very unlike you. What’s on your mind, child?”

Miss Johnson always calls him ‘child’, regardless of the fact she is  _ maybe _ a year or two older than Harry - if that. 

Still, it makes him smile.

He takes a slow sip of the mug she hands him. Most people he just hands off the potions and does any check-ups needed, but Miss Johnson always insists on having him come in and sit for a bit. Normally it’s a bit of a reprieve from a long day but today he can’t get himself to sit still.

“Just… someone’s come back into my life,” he says. “And it’s complicated, you know? He’s- I don’t know, he was such a big part of my life before, and now my life is entirely different and I don’t know where he fits in! Or even if he  _ wants _ to fit in!” He wants to just thunk his head down on the table. Maybe sleep. Maybe just  _ pass out _ and not think for a bit. Whatever’s easiest.

She’s about to reply when a dinging like a small bell echoes through the room. “Hold on,” she says and hurries over to the sink, looking down into it and running a bit of water. Harry takes a sip of his tea and tries not to listen in.

She turns to him after a minute. “It’s for you,” she says with a strange look on her face. Harry sets down his mug and beelines for the sink. None of his kids have ever tried to contact him at work before - is it Louis? Did something happen?

“Hello?” He asks, staying down into the shallow, cloudy water in the bottom of the kitchen sink.

The cloudy water clears, and two very huge eyes are staring up at him. Harry almosts laughs, if nothing else because this day can’t possibly be any less normal.

“Elizabeth, love, back up away from the mirror so I can see your whole face, will you? What’s up, is everything alright?”

She backs up (minimally) and says, “Uncle Harry, there’s a  _ man _ here!”

Harry tries not to smile too wide. “Do you mean Louis?”

She frowns and then exits the frame for a minute, leaving Harry with  a view of an empty kitchen. Faintly, he can hear her asking-

_ “Are you Louis?” _

And a very familiar voice answers,  _ “I certainly am.” _

Elizabeth’s face appears back in the sink.  _ “He says his name’s Louis,” _ she says with a whisper that Louis can definitely hear.  _ “Should I believe him?” _

“Yes I think this time you should,” Harry tells her. “I’m proud of you for coming to me when you were worried, yeah? I asked out friend Louis to stay over until I get home, is that okay with you?”

She looks contemplatively over her shoulder and then back again. “Yeah, I guess.”

Then she’s gone, apparently having decided the discussion is over, leaving only the blank view of the kitchen behind.

“Louis?” Harry calls in the hope that he’s still nearby.

Luckily, that’s apparently true. Louis appears (an appropriate distance away, so Harry can see his whole face) and gives him a little wave.

“She’s sweet!”

“Something like that,” Harry says with a little frown and Louis laughs at him.

“No really! She was very concerned you have been kidnapped.”

Harry groans, putting a hand to his face. “Are you okay over there? Do I need to skip my last appointment? Where are the other ones? Gus, Troy and Mesha?”

_ “Gus!” _ Louis says with a snap of his fingers. “That’s his name! He told me he’s called Supreme Overlord and Troy just backed him up. They’re fine, I gave them carrots and they’re out in the back garden.”

Harry heaves a sigh of relief. “That’s good. Okay. Um. Will you go check and make sure Gus isn’t digging around the bushes too much? And um, I’ll be there really soon, I’ve just got one more appointment today. Um- unless you need me to come home now? If it’s too much-”

“Haz, It’s fine,” Louis reassures him. He looks a lot more calm and collected than he did this morning. He also looks a hell of a lot more calm and collected than Harry feels right now. “I’m doing great, the kids are lovely, and Mesha has requested something called salmon explosion for dinner. I’m not sure what that is but I can throw some salmon in the oven if that’d be helpful.”

Harry feels like everything is both too good to be true and moving too erratically for him to catch up. “Um, if you could? That’d be amazing. Salmon explosion is actually just leftovers heated up with salmon on top. I dunno if we’ve actually got leftovers to heat up right now so anything that you see feel free to mess with.”

“Sure thing, I’ll hold the fort until you get back. Just relax! Take your time, I’ll make sure the house doesn’t burn down.”

Harry isn’t sure Louis really knows how much of a threat that is.

Louis reassures him again before closing the connection, leaving Harry staring only at an empty puddle of water in the sink. He straightens back up and rolls his shoulders, feeling his back crack. Then he turns to Miss Johnson, sitting at the dining table, with a serene look on her face.

“We can discuss possible change in potions next time,” she tells him. “I think you need to be on your way home to see your boy.”

_ He’s not my boy, _ he thinks he should say.

But he just smiles a grateful smile and walks back over to down the rest of his tea and get to work.

— 

By the time Harry has finished all of his deliveries the rain has more or less stopped, so he’s happy to be able to take out his broom for the trip home. He likes to start his day at the furthest house from his own and work his way home if possible, so it’s not a particularly long journey, but it’s plagued with unanswered thoughts today.

He wonders about whether the kids have gotten along well with Louis, and wonders whether they’ve tried to pull a fast one on him for extra sweets or other things. He wonders about where Louis’s been all the years and why he’s back  _ now. _ He wonders whether he should be paying Mesha more attention if she really is holding in her magic, and whether he’s neglecting any of the other children without noticing. He wonders whether the salmon for dinner is going to be edible because he remembers a large number of burned meals back in university. He wonders if the healers will accept walk-ins because he completely  _ forgot _ about setting up an appointment for Shelly. 

He wonders about a lot but for some reason what he keeps coming back to the most is - 

_ Did Louis ever wonder about me? _

— 

It’s one of those months where the sun doesn’t set until well after dinner, but on a day like today that’s been hazy since it started out, everything looks like it’s cast in shadow as Harry alights down in the back garden.

It’s quiet and for a minute he’s rather worried that something horrible has happened. Normally he would have had to cancel or move around his deliveries in order to be home in time to meet the kids coming home from class, and the fact that he wasn’t there today is making him rather nervous. He  _ knows _ everything was fine, considering Elizabeth contacted him in the first place. He knows logically that Louis does have six younger siblings and should be perfectly fine with looking after kids for a few hours but  _ still _ he’s feeling all jittery and panicky and he doesn’t know why but he just wants to find Mesha and Elizabeth and Gus and Troy and…  _ something. _ He doesn’t  _ know _ why he’s so worried, but when he touches down he’s not particularly paying attention and he’s thrown off balance into a poorly growing hydrangea bush.

Ow.

“The young are doing fine,” says a voice all too close next to Harry’s ear. Harry recoils in surprise and gets himself more scratched up between the branches. 

“Shit- Zayn?”

He turns his head (carefully) and sees Zayn sitting primly on a branch next to him. 

“He is doing well. They are inside.”

Harry huffs. “I mean I did  _ assume-” _

“I expect repayment when you have opportunity. Ten aubergines and thirty four twigs to be placed below the wisteria vines before the next full moon.”

Harry, thankfully, doesn’t have to think of anything witty to reply to that, because Zayn gets up, steps off the branch and winks out of sight. Harry stared at the spot where they once were and wonders exactly what goes through the minds of pixies, but tries not to dwell on it too much. His energy is better spent on trying to disentangle himself from the poor bruised bush he’s been slowly crushing.

With difficulty, he gets up and tears a holes in his clothes in the process before retrieving his broom and bag from where they’ve fallen and dusting them off. The owl coop in the corner of the yard is full of judging eyes but Harry thinks that may be more to do with the fact that they haven’t been let out yet tonight to catch dinner.

He takes a moment to go over and open the doors and gets a few appreciative nips in return, before turning toward the house. It hasn’t been burned down yet, so that’s a good sign.

Upon opening the back door, Harry is greeted with a peculiar sight.

Troy, Gus, Elizabeth and Mesha are all sitting at the table  _ together _ with a board game.

Harry can’t get them to play a board game together for all the extra cookies in the world. He’s tried so many times. Harry  _ loves _ board games.

“Hi Uncle Harry!” Elizabeth shrieks, jumping up in her chair and running over to hug Harry around the waist.

“Uncle Louis got us this new game! You’re a panda and you eat bamboo! I ate all the bamboo and I won!”

“She cheated,” Gus mumbles from his seat where he’s frowning at the board.

“That’s great Elizabeth,” Harry tells her, hugging her back. “Where’s Uncle Louis now? Is he upstairs?”

Three little heads nod at him. Gus sulks.

“Okay, I’ll just be right back, and then I want to hear about all of your days.”

Harry works to disentangle Elizabeth’s arms from around her waist and then picks her up and plops her back in the chair. He notes that they all have put their bags under the countertop like they’re supposed to. They  _ never _ do that.

He makes his way past the toilet and up the stairs, noticing briefly that he’s not in danger of tripping on anything - the stairs are surprisingly tidy.

He can hear rummaging going on in the room immediately to his left up the stairs - the room belonging to Cole and Andrew. 

“Louis?”

Rounding the corner into the room, he suddenly feels he might have been transported into an alternate reality.

The floor is  _ visible. _ All the books in the room are on the shelves in  _ neat rows _ . The toys and games appear to be stacked in the clothes basket that’s used as a catch-all toy bin. There are  _ no _ clothes dirty or otherwise thrown about the room.

Louis, Harry finds, is on Andrew’s bunk, his head barely grazing the ceiling as he straightens the blankets.

Cole’s bed is made.

Andrew’s bed is being made.

Harry doesn’t think their beds have  _ ever _ been made.

“Oh, hi Harry!” Louis says when he looks up. “Hold on, I’ll just…”

He shimmies over to the side of the bed and lets his legs dangle before dropping down (there is a  _ ladder _ for godssakes, Harry wants to point out).

“Hey, everything go okay? I hope Elizabeth’s call earlier didn’t scare you.”

Harry shakes his head, still staring around the room. “What is… What is this?”

Louis frowns, looking over his shoulder and trying to see what Harry is looking at. “The… toy basket? Or at least I assumed that’s what it was, since they have separate laundry baskets. There’s a batch of laundry soaking in the bath, by the way. I’m fairly good at household spells and there were a lot of grass stains-”

“No, I mean. The room. It’s. I can see the floor?”

“Oh, yeah I mean I’m sure it’ll be a mess by tomorrow. But kids will be kids, you know? I’m almost done and I’ve only got one room left but I figured the four downstairs seemed to be pretty sucked into that game I brought over. It was always Daisy and Phoebe’s favourite too, figured they might like a classic. And it teaches math!”

“You’ve… only got one room left?” Harry’s not sure he heard anything Louis said after that. “You- Clean?”

Louis is looking at him now like Harry is crazy. Harry is probably crazy. “Yes? Was that okay? I mean I know I wasn’t the neatest back in university, but I didn’t think you’d mind…”

Harry turns and walks out of the room.

He looks in the room next to it - Amelia and Kayleigh’s - and finds  _ the same thing. _ The beds are made. The landry is nowhere to be seen. The makeup is all closed and organised.

Louis has come up behind him and Harry nearly runs into him as he turns to go to the next room - the bathroom - only to find that the tiles are sparkling and it smells faintly of lavender (probably from the clothes soaking in the claw footed bath). 

Harry turns again but Louis catches him by the shoulder this time, keeping him from continuing on.

“Harry - is this okay?” Louis asks, clearly worried. “Did I overstep? I really didn’t mean to. I can stop if you’d like. Immediately! You’ll never see me move another spray bottle.”

Harry looks him in the eye. Louis looks so concerned, eyes wide and brows drawn in. Louis looks beautiful. Louis has always looked beautiful. Louis cleaned Harry’s house. Harry hasn’t been able to clean his own house in months. There’s still a red wine stain on the linoleum in the kitchen from the ten minutes Harry spent trying to act like an adult two weeks ago that got interrupted by Cole stumbling downstairs an hour after he was supposed to be asleep and then throwing up all over Harry’s shoes.

Louis looks too good to be true.

Harry bursts into tears.

It’s just that it’s been such a long week and a longer month and a longer year and Harry doesn’t  _ know  _ the last time he slept more than six hours in a night (if that), and cleaning the house felt like a  _ pipe dream _ that he couldn’t even allow himself to think of too often, but never in his wildest dreams did he imagine the house would be cleaned by  _ someone else. _

He’s so tired that he can feel it in his bones and he cries because he’s making an absolute embarrassment of himself and there goes all his hope of looking like anything other than an absolute freak.

He feels a pair of arms circle around him and then Louis’s saying something but Harry honestly hasn’t the slightest clue what because he’s always found that when he starts crying it’s terribly hard to stop and also the house is  _ clean _ and the kids are  _ not getting up to mischief _ and Louis is  _ here. _

Harry hadn’t realised how big a deal that last point could be until it happened.

When he eventually does calm down (if only because he doesn’t want the children downstairs to hear him and get worried), he becomes aware that Louis is still embracing him and Harry is leaning heavily into his touch.

“There we go,” Louis say, reaching one hand up to card it through Harry’s hair. “We’ll be okay, yeah? You functioning again?”

Harry nods, his cheeks flushing.

“I think maybe we should step into this newly clean bathroom so you can get rid of those red eyes and also tell me what I did wrong,” Louis says, his voice terrifically calm for someone who has just witnessed a grown man break down, Harry thinks.

He follows Louis into the bathroom and Louis instructs him to hop up onto the countertop, which Harry does (because who is he to say no?). Louis grabs the hand towel hanging next to the sink and runs cool water over it. “Hold this to each of your eyes for a minute or two. Makes you feel better and you don’t look crazy afterward.”

“Are you saying I look crazy now?” Harry tries to joke. Louis gives him a smile that says  _ yes maybe I do but do it anyway, _ so he does.

“I’m sorry, I dunno what happened,” Harry says and then sighs. “Yes I do, that’s a lie. I cried because you cleaned my house. But not in a bad way!” he jumps to correct at Louis’s expression. “It’s just been, um. Really overwhelming. And I thought I was handling it but I guess maybe not as well as I thought, and I’ve literally been having dreams about getting the house clean, but I can barely even juggle my job and my kids most of the time.” He lets out a sigh, tilting his head so the cool cloth hits his forehead too. “You must think I’m a horrible parent.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Louis tells him forcefully, making Harry look up in surprise. “I think you’ve taken on a lot and you’re just one person, so things are bound to get thrown around or forgotten from time to time. I watched my mum have a few breakdowns growing up and that was with only five of us! I admire you quite a bit right now, I’m exhausted and I’ve only been here twelve hours.”

“Eight,” Harry corrects and then hides his face in the flannel again, cheeks burning.

“Yes thank you know-it-all, and you’re only proving my point,” Louis says, his voice betraying a smile. 

Harry smiles back a bit and lowers the flannel.

“There’s that pretty face,” Louis says, and Harry smiles wider. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen those dimples and I have to admit I’ve missed them.”

Harry stops himself from saying something inane like  _ “they missed you too,” _ because dimples aren’t remotely sentient. Instead he says something debatably even worse. “Then why did you stop writing?”

His mind feels like a thousand foghorns blaring at him as the smile falls off of Louis’s face. “Um,” Louis says.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Harry moves to get up, fussing with the flannel in his hands. “I’m sure you were busy, going all over the world like that.”

“No-” Louis reaches out a hand, circling it around Harry’s wrist. “Not at all, sort of the opposite, really. Being away made me realise just how much I, um, missed you.”

Harry’s staring at him now.

“I wasn’t prepared for how much you were a part of my life, I think,” Louis says. “And then you were gone and I really noticed? A lot. It was like, every time I did something new and exciting, my first reaction was to turn around look for you, but-”

The sound of the front door slamming startles both of them, followed by a chorus of voices, running feet, and the thuds of bags hitting the ground.

Harry’s heart is hammering in his chest and he feels like the wind has been knocked out of him. “That’ll be, um, the older ones,” he says weakly.

“Yeah,” Louis agrees. “I, um. I would think so.”

They’re staring at each other and Harry knows there’s not enough time to say everything he needs to and they’re going to be walked in on in less than a minute if past experiences are anything to go by, so he puts the flannel to his eyes one more time, lowers it, steels his expression, and says, “We will continue this exactly where we left off in approximately six hours.”

“Six hours?” asks Louis, sounding rather concerned.

“That’s how long it’ll be until everyone is in their rooms and at least  _ pretending _ to be asleep,” Harry tells him.

It’s going to be the longest six hours of his life.

— 

It is, in fact, the longest six hours of Harry’s life.

They come downstairs and Harry introduces Louis to the newcomers.

Amelia shakes his hand and goes off to the kitchen to do her homework.

Kayleigh looks at him warily and asks if he’s ever been arrested.

Cole nods to him and refuses to say anything.

Andrew waves and asks Harry if he needs help with dinner.

Harry had forgotten about dinner.

Louis assures both of them that he has it under control, and it turns out he does. Dinner is served an hour later and it’s a weird sort of shepherd’s pie with couscous instead of potatoes and salmon on top per Mesha’s wishes. Harry finds that dinner means sitting there and watching Louis getting grilled by eight children all speaking over each other and asking more and more inappropriate questions (starting at  _ where are you from _ and ending at  _ have you ever kissed a girl _ and  _ would you kiss me). _

After dinner Harry watches in fascination as Louis successfully gets someone besides Andrew to help with the dishes. Troy insists on showing Louis his yo-yo tricks and then Amelia asks for his help with her Maths, and Harry would be jealous of the attention except he’s so relieved to be able to just sit and watch live revolve around him for once. It’s a nice change.

Of course, Gus comes to him whimpering when his fingertips are singed, and Cole asks for his help checking over his Spells paper, and Mesha wants him to play the bamboo game again with her (and he has to learn the rules, which takes quite a while because Mesha doesn’t  _ quite _ know them herself).

And by the time the older set are heading to bed and the younger set are already asleep, Harry about feels like it’s time for him to drop off as well.

The last thing he does every night once all of them are in bed is place a bit of rosewater and lily petals at the base of each door for good luck and sweet dreams (because more than a few of them used to have really nasty dreams when they first arrived), and after turning off the hallway light he stumbles downstairs, feeling drained as always, to find Louis sitting on the livingroom couch waiting for him with a tired smile.

“They’re a handful,” he says, “but you’ve done a good job with them.”

Harry snorts, plopping down onto the couch next to him. There’s only one light on in the house now, and it’s the one next to the couch, painting Louis’s face in a soft glow. “I dunno about that, but thanks,” he says. “They deserve the best, they’re great kids.”

“They are,” Louis agrees. “And I would like to keep helping you out with them, if that’s okay?”

“Um,” Harry says. “I mean. Of course? If you don’t have any other obligations? I mean, what happened after that internship? Why are you back here?”

Louis sighs, sitting back. “I mean, it was great. The internship, I mean. And I graduated while I was still over there with my Cultuprea degree, and I was offered a permanent spot on the interpretation team, but…” he shakes his head. “It’s kind of ridiculous, to throw away an opportunity like that, right? But I was just so homesick at that point, and my mum had just had the twins, and holidays were so rare that even the few times I was home it didn’t feel like nearly enough. I couldn’t do it, Haz. I’m just too attached to this little town, you know?”

Harry tentatively reaches out and brushes his fingers over Louis’s. “So what?” he asks, heart hammering like it has been pretty much all day. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s great that you’re going to be here to watch your siblings grow up!”

“It’s not just that,” Louis tells him, looking down at where Harry’s fingers have stopped mere inches from Louis’s. “I mean, it wasn’t just them I was missing, you know? I, um, I stopped writing to you because every time I did all I could think of was how I wanted nothing more than to be back in our dorm together watching the meteor showers on the roof or listening to you read your dumb ingredients lists out loud, and I just… That’s what made me the most homesick, you know? It was ridiculous.”

Harry does not think it’s ridiculous. He thinks perhaps he might be having some sort of fever dream (although he doesn’t have a fever) because there’s no way this is real, but it definitely is not ridiculous.

Louis’s face looks quite red, and he’s still staring steadfastly at his hand, so Harry takes the opportunity to place his hand over Louis’s. “I don’t think it was ridiculous at all,” Harry says. “Considering I felt the same way.”

So of course  _ now _ Louis is staring at  _ him _ instead of his  _ hand, _ and Harry thinks about how he’s never been particularly interested in anyone he’s met in the past few years, and he thinks about those letters tucked away in his recipe book and he thinks about sitting in their dorm at three in the morning and nodding off together on Harry’s bed as they try to make it through an entire textbook the night before an exam-

And Harry’s leaning forward and brushing his lips against Louis’s, because it’s been five years of thinking those thoughts and assuming that nothing would ever come of them.

“Amelia wakes up at five forty five most mornings,” Harry informs Louis, who seems to be frozen in shock. “That means we have about six hours until we have to be awake again. If you really want to do this, I have to warn you that you will never know what good sleep is like again.”

Louis blinks. He leans forward. He kisses Harry back. “I think I’m ready for that challenge,” he says.

— 

Louis says that toast cannot have both jam and butter on it. It’s his and Harry’s first fight. The fight is resolved as soon as everyone is out the door for school, leaving Harry and Louis with exactly twelve minutes to make out before Harry has to harvest a potion.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Come visit me at [Londonfoginacup](http://londonfoginacup.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and if you're feeling kind you can [reblog the fic post!](http://londonfoginacup.tumblr.com/post/162902152236/packed-lunches-sticky-fingers-and-accidental)


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